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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OP AMEEIOA. 



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A SERMON DELIVERED IN THE FIRST CON- 
GREGATIONAL CHURCH OF MANISTEE, 
MICH., ON THE SABBATH FOL- 
LOWING THE DEATH OF 



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BY THE PASTOR, 

THEO. C. JEROME. 



^E^T^t^lislaeci To^r tlae OlavLi-cla. 



MANISTEE, MICHIGAN : 

ADVOCATE PRINT. 
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At the regular Divine services in the First Congregational Church 
of Manistee, Mich., Sept. 25th, 1881, immediately preceding the ben- 
ediction, Gen. B. M. Cutcheon stepped forward and moved that the 
sermon of that morning, upon the subject of the Death of the Presi- 
dent, be pubhshed by the Church. Also, that the officers of the 
Board of Trustees, Messrs. R. G. Peters, A. V. McAlvay, and H. 
C. Mauzy, be a committee to take charge of such publication. 
This motion being put to vote by Gen. Cutcheon, was heartily and 
unanimously carried. Attest, 

B. P. BARNES, 

Church Clerk. 

Manistee, Mich., Oct. 12th, 1881, 



N 




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The Bright Light 

which is in the Cloud." 



Psalm 97-1: **The Lord reignetJi; let the earth rejoice.'* 



At the National Republican Convention, in the city of Chicago, June 
2-8, 1880, thirty-three ballots had been taken for the choice of a nom- 
inee to the office of President of the United States. The result of the 
thirty-third ballot varied but httle from that of the first. Through 
five days, fifteen hundred delegates or alternates and fifty thousand 
spectators had been at excitement's fever heat. The tension could 
scarcely longer be endured. AU were well nigh convinced that no 
one of the prominent candidates could secure the nomination. A 
break would certainly soon be made. But no man could tell in what 
direction. 

Thus came the thirty - fourth ballot. And when the name of the 
last State, that of Wisconsin, was called, the chairman of her delega- 
tion declared that sixteen of her twenty votes were cast for James A. 
Garfield. The announcement was received, not only with the univer- 
sal applause with which the Convention's favorite orator had been 
greeted whenever he had spoken, but also by an added electric thrill, 
which boded the beginning of the end. 

Amid the confusion, however, Mr. Garfield's own commanding pres- 
ence was seen, and his strong voice was heard, demanding recogni- 
tion, as he exclaimed, upon "a point of order." 

The Chair — "The gentleman from Ohio will please state his point 
of order." 

Mr. Garfield — "I challenge the correctness of the announcement 
containing votes for me. No man has a right to have his name an- 
nounced as a candidate, and voted for in this Convention without his 
own consent. Such consent I have not given and cannot give." 



The Chair — " The geutleman from Ohio is not in order. His point 
is not sustained." 

And we all kno ,v how with the second ballot following, this unwill- 
ing candidate received the nomination; and how, from that hour, the 
personality of James Abram Garfield has been with culminating af- 
fection and fascination foremost in the view of the American people. 

His previous history has been such as most fully meets the American 
ideal. Of English - German descent, with two of his direct ancestors 
active in the war of our National Independence, the stock was ever 
sturdy and God-fearing. Himself left fatherless in infancy, he was 
brought up in poverty and hardship. 

He was by no means the typical "goody boy ;" having, rather, a 
superabnndance of animal spirits and a somewhat pugnacious dispo- 
sition. But, by a matchless mother he was taught to deny himself, to 
work, to study and to reverence law, human and Divine. Througlvva- 
ous kinds of manual toil, he struggled his way to a liberal education ; 
graduating from Williams College, Mass., at the age of twenty-six, 
with the highest honors of his class. 

Twenty-four years after this graduation, on the evening preceding 
his inauguration as President of the United States, a dinner was ten- 
dered him in Washington by his College Class. In response to a toast, 
that evening, Mr. Garfield made the following brief speech ; a speech, 
which, for its intrinsic beauty is worthy of quotation; but which also, 
in the light of subsequent events, gains wondrous added pathos and 
prophetic significance : 

Classmates: To me there is something exceedingly .pathetic in this 
reunion. In every eve before me I see the light of friendship and 
love, and I am sure it" is reflected back to each of you from my inmost 
heart. For twenty-two vears, with the exception of the last fe\v days, 
I have been in the public service. To-niglit I am a private citizen. 
To-morrow 1 shall be called to assume new responsibilities, and on the 
day after the broadside of the world's wrath will strike. It will strike 
hard. I know it, and vou will know it. Whatever may happen to 
me in the future, I shall feel that I can always fall back up(jn the 
shoulders and hearts of the class of '•')() for their approvalof that which 
is right, and for their charitable judgment wherein I nay come short 
in the discharge of my public duties. You may write down in your 
books now the largest percentage of blunders which you think I will 
be likely to make, and you will be sure to find in the end that I have 
made more than you calculated— many more. This honor comes to 
me unsought. I have never had the Presidential fever— not for a day; 
nor have I it to-night. I have no feeling of elation in view of tlie po- 
sition I am called 11 pon to fill, I would thank God were I to-day a 
free lance in the House or in the Senate. But it is not to be, and I will 
go forward to meet the responsibilities and discharge the duties that 
are before me with all the firmness and ability I can command. 

" This honor comes me unsought. I have never had the Presiden- 
tial fever — not for a day." Thank we God, first this morning, 
amid our grief, that such words have been truthfully spoken from the 
White House of this nation; that, for the first time (if I mistake not) 
since the days of the younger Adams, at the head of the American 
people, has stood a man who had put forth no slightest direct effort to 



3 

secure to himself that lofty eminence. How priceless the ideal in 
our selfish American politics of a man utterly modest and single eyed; 
who, having accepted the place of champion knight to John Sherman, 
for that reason if for no other, more loyal than Jonathan to Uavid, would 
not be king, though it were already manifest that his friend could 
not be. 

Secondly — Is it not right and meet, that, gathered in Christian wor- 
ship, as an evangelical church, we should with grateful praise to the Head 
of the Church AVho calleth His own sheep l^y name, make mention of the 
fact that James A. Garfield was, and is, our confessed brother in our 
Lord Christ. 

At the age of twenty-two, under no boyish impulse, but of man- 
hood's choice, he was baptized by immersion into the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy GhosI ; becoming a member of 
that until recentl}^ obscure branch of the Baptist Church known as 
"Disciples." Of Ihis, in worldly goods and worldly influence, the 
"weakest of the evangelical denomin^tioiLS, he remained throughout 
life a devoted member; he brought earthly strength to his church, as 
certainly, from every worldly standpoint, that church could not bring 
strength to him. Xotably among our Christian public men, he has 
never incurred the least suspicion of making parade of his religion ; 
has been no staple orator at imposing ecclesiastical assemblages ; but, 
in the various Sabbath services and week day prayer meetings of his 
owh little church, whether at Hiram, at Mentor or at Washington, Mr. 
Garfield has not only been a regular attendant, but also a frequent par- 
ticipant. 

On that solemn Saturday morning, eleven weeks ago, as the Nation's 
Martyr lay bleeding in the railroad depot at Washington, the Rev. Dr. 
Byron Sunderland, ex -chaplain of the U. S. Senate, leaned over him 
and said : " Mr. President, j^ou are the servant of God ; you are in 
His hands, and I say to you that the heart of this whole people will 
go out to God that you may be spared. " The reply came promptly : 
" I know it; I believe in God and trust myself in His hands. " 

Near the close of that Saturday, before Mrs. Garfield reached his 
bedside, when evidences of internal hemorrhage indicated that death 
rwas near, he turned to one of the physicians and said : " Doctor, are 
the prospects very bad ? Don't be afraid to tell me frankly. I am 
ready for the worst. " The ])hysician hesitated, but replied : " Well, 
]\Ir. President, your condition is extremely critical, and I do not think 
you can live many hours. " The response came like that of the old 
Scriptural Martyre: "God's will be done, Doctor. I am ready to go if 
my time has come." 

Thank we God, this morning, for such words from a ruler of this 
Christian people ; and for the fifty years of spotless, devout, daily liv- 
ing and loving, which have impelled men to say to one another with 
bated breath, as over the land they have told the tidings : " He was 
a good man." " He was a Christian." " If ever a man was ready 
to die, the President Wiis." 



Garfield, Lincoln and Washington, these have been our Christian 
Presidents, the three who, either before or during their terms of office, 
have humbly acknowledged themselves disciples of Jesus. AVashing- 
ton was a communicant in the Episcopal Church. Lincoln, indeed, did 
not join any church ; but, during the last year of his hfe, made the 
declaration, well known to his family and to his Cabinet : " AVhen I 
left Illinois to assume the chair of State, I requested my country to 
pray for me. I was not then a Christian. When my son died — the 
severest trial of my life — I was not then a Christian. But, when I 
went to Gettysburg, and looked upon the graves of our dead heroes, 
I then and there consecrated myself to Christ." 

Washington, Lincoln and Garfield ; the three mightiest; the three 
who henceforth evermore are enshrined together in the American 
heart. And is it not a remarkable coincidence that these are the three 
and the only three, who during their terms of office were avowed dis- 
ciples of Jesus? Goodness is indispensable to the highest of even 
earthly greatness. Manifest is it once more that this, in the truest, 
deepest convictions of the people, is a Christian nation ; and that 
only a Christian man can command the utmost of national aflfection. 

On that other solemn Saturday morning, sixteen years ago, April the 
14th, '65, about Wall St. Exchange in New York City, were packed fifty 
thousand men under the first intense fury of the tidings that, at the 
Nation's Capitol, Lincoln lay dead and Seward lay dying. The host 
were burning for revenge, ripe for any fury which should give vent to 
their frenzied passions. Thus the cry was raised "The World !" "To 
the office of the World !" In a moment, anarchy would have engulf- 
ed the metropolis. 

But a man, standing, Saul-like, head and shoulders above all others 
on the steps of the Exchange, uttered a call outsouuding the tumult, — 
the only word which at that crisis could have commanded silence: — 
"A telegram ! Another telegram ! " With speedy, universal hush, all 
paused for the supposed fresh tidings. And these were the words in 
accents of superb elocution: 

"Fellow citizens ! clouds and darkness are round about Him ! His 
pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the sky! Justice and judg- 
ment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall 
go before His face! Fellow citizens ! God reigns, and the Govern- 
ment at Washington still 1 ives." 

We are told that the eSect of these words was supernatural. The 
mob stood riveted with thoughts of the Almighty and of vengeance 
belonging to God. "It was a triumph of eloquence, a flash of 
inspiration such as comes not once in a centurj'. " The moment and 
the man had appeared together. And the man was Garfield. 

The text of this sermon, as I announced it, I fear, scarcely com- 
mended itself to your hearts as the right text for our part in this na- 
tion's weeping. Surely joy, in any sense of merriment, is the farthest 
from the nation's heart. On the contrary, never before has the earth 



witnessed such accordant, spontaneous expressions of grief as to-mor- 
row noon will bring. It were impossible save in a Republic; the peo- 
ple lamenting the king they themselves had crowned. 

And when, sixteen years ago, the remains of that first martyred 
Executive were borne across the North to the tomb at Springfield, the 
passions of the civil strife were yet unsoothed and certainly one sec- 
tion of the land did not universally mourn. But as certainly, to-mor- 
row, will there be from the Lakes to the Gulf, from ocean to ocean, 
not one heart which is not touched, not one pulse which will not throb 
responsive to the funeral dirge. It is the spontaneous, one-voiced la- 
mentation of fifty million freemen. To those solemn obsequies there 
will be no spectators, for all will sit in the mourners' seats. 

"Bury the Great Duke 
AVith an empire's lamentation ; 

Let us burv the Great Duke 
To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation. 

Mourning when their leaders fall, 

AVarriors carry the warrior's pall. 

And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall." 
Yea, more largely tlian in that sublime "Ode upon the Death of 
Wellington," literally may we say that all nations of the civilized world 
mourn with us, this solemn hour. 

And we can but question, we who believe in God,— why was it al- 
lowed ? Why was he, our greatest and our dearest, in the flush of his 
fame and of his power for good, of our large need and of his large suf- 
ficiency to that need, — wliy was it allowed that he should be thus 
basely stricken down? Or yet again, if the God of our faith be the 
Bible God, ^hy has God, after eleven weeks of such united prayer for 
specific material good as Heaven ne'er before has received from earth, 
— why has God seemed finally to mock these prayers? This is the 
question which can but meet us at the outset, as we are summoned 
afresh to-day "to invoke the favor of Almighty upon oin- stricken and 
sorrowing country." What avail to pray at all? 

In reply to this question, let me remind you, first, that all this mighty 
volume of Christian petition, these eleven weeks, has been with the 
constant stipulation, " If it be God's will. " No other prayer could be 
Christian pray.ir. However sore may be the agony of desire, no de- 
vout heart assumes to dictate to Deity, but only to supplicate. 

Furthermore, it is our Christian faith that no true prayer is lost ; 
nor unheeded by the Ruler of the Universe. We, little children, may 
not understand the mysteries of the Almighty Father's ways; but we 
believe that if we, who are fathers, "know how to give good gifts unto 
our children, much more doth the Father in Heaven give good things 
to them that ask Him." For bread Gcd doth not give us a stone; for 
meat He doth not give us a scorpion. To the agonized, reverent, per- 
sistent supplications of these eleven weeks, God hath not rendered 
mockery. 

"These are the hidings of ILs power" and of His love; yet may we not 
even now gratefully enumerate large compensations and beatitudes 



•0 

which have come ahead}' to the land, and to our martyred saint, even 
through that saint's translation ; even in answer to the nation's pray- 
ers? Of the past week's solemn, blessed study of God's Providence 
in our sainted President's life and death, I could but bring you this 
same verse of the text as the one which of all verses in the Bible to 
my heart best comprehends the lesson of the day: " The Lord reign- 
eth; let the earth rejoice." 

" Rejoice?" Yes, rejoice, first, with him for whom we have prayed. 
If we bel'eve that heaven is higher than earth, shall we not rejoice 
that our uncrowned king of earth was, last Monday night, diademed a 
king in an infinitely more blessed realm? 

" The Lord hath need of him." When two years ago, he was sum- 
moned by his native State to represent that commonwealth in the Sen- 
ate Chamber of the United States, the smaller Congressional District 
whose interests at AVashington through eighteen years, had been to 
him entrusted, cheerfully yielded him to that larger claim. When, 
again, a year later, he was summoned by the nation to bear upon his 
shoulders the Executive headship of the broad land, Ohio cheerfully 
yielded him to that yet larger claim. And now that the King of Kings 
has summoned him to heights of attainment, citizenship, kingship 
and joint heirship with the Son of God ; shall we, in our earthly self- 
ishness or short-sightedness, exclaim: "It ought not so to have been!" 

"If ye loved Me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go to the Father. 
And my Father is greater than I. " Not on the glad last fourth of 
March, but rather on this solemn September nineteenth, did our hero 
attain supreme triumph. For " to him that overcometh will I give to 
sit with Me in My throne; as I also overcame and am sat down with 
My Father in His throne." 

" Nobly thy course is rnn. 

Splendor is round it ; 
Bravely thy fight is won. 

Martyrdom crowned it." 

Mr. Garfield himself, years ago, said that "if there be one thing 
above another which mankind admire and love, it is a brave man, a 
man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him that he is 
the devil." When one of Napoleon's Marshals, upon his deathbed 
bitterly repined, some wondered why he, who had so often on the 
battle field faced death without a tremor, should now prove craven. 
" But nay," it was rejoined, " many times has Marshal Lannes faced 
death, but never before has death faced him." 

Our Knightly Soldier, not only at Chickamauga where Thomas fell, 
again and again returned to the hottest of the charge; but also on the 
couch of agony, through hopeless months felt his bone and sinew 
shrinking under the skeleton clasp of the King of Terrors ; but his 
spirit never quailed. " God's will be done." " I believe in God and 
I trust myself to Him." These were his words. And indeed, his life 
long, (as another has said,) "he has looked both death and the deviljin 
the face, until the latter hath ever fled from him and the former " ut- 



terly lost its sting. The sting of cleatli is sin ; but this man, tlirough 
Christ, liad conquered sin. 

Rejoice we then to day, first, I repeat, because that God hath su- 
premely blessed him for whom these myriad loving prayers liave been 
offered; hath enabled him to be sublimely " faithful unto death " and 
so already to receive "the crown of life." 

But, further, may we not gratefully see how God has answered our 
prayers in that, through these eleven weeks of vicarious pain, our Mar- 
tyr Saint has been, to this broad land, an instrument, under God, of 
priceless good; such as perhaps even he could not have been, had he 
lived as President, with continuously increasing acceptance, through 
seven years to come ! Surely in no other twelve weeks of our history, 
(not even in the grand weeks following the shot upon Sumter; for 
those weeks, with their lofty patriotic consecration, brought also the 
culmination of national discord and dismemberment,) in no other peri- 
od of our history, I say, has the united land been so regenerated 
and sanctified by celestial thought as in these twelve weeks which 
culminate to morrow noon. 

How has partisanship been obliterated; the nation been placed above 
faction ; duty above passion ! The heart of South and North, of West 
and East has throbbed perfectly as one. 

"Oh East ! from whence his life he drew ! 

Oh West ! of which his life was part ! 
Oh North ! that hath no type more true ! 

Oh South ! that better friend n=i'er knew ! 
Oh Land ! that hath no braver heart ! — 

Sore-smitten Land ! send softest airs. 
Cool with the spray of falling tears. 

Sweet-perfumed with unnumbered prayers, 
Freighted with hope for future years — 
Thy Saul swoons on thy natal day ! 
God grant he pass not clean away ! " 

And he has not passed " clean away." God gave us Washington ; 
God gave us Lincoln ; God gave us Garfield. " God gives. He does 
not take away." No one of these hath God despoiled from America, 
nor from the earth. They being dead yet speak. 

" The President is dead," say we? Nay, nay ! The President lives, 
as lives no living man of this generation. Lives yet upon the earth, 
and shall live upon the earth while earth remains. " For weeks he 
has been a sacred thing ; lifting the earth Godward as no being, 
except the Christ, has ever lifted earth before. And such a sa- 
cred presence he will remain, above all breath of partisan defilement, 
an inspiration and priceless heritage." Those of our rulers who are 
truly great and truly good, remain our rulers evermore — ideals of duty, 
truth and sacrifice. Lifted uj) by martyrdom, as are Lincoln and Gar- 
field, they draw all men. 

" It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of 
feasting." For twelve weeks, the nation has sat in the house of mourn- 
ing; of anxiety, of solemn thought and of devout, unselfish interces- 



Bion. A million men have prayed, who perchance in manhood had 
not prayed before. 

It is well to think of death and of how a Christian faces death. This 
has been the nation's thonght. It is well, as men pass along the way, 
to have a bulletin, before which all shall pause, with ever fresh, spon- 
taneous, unselfish interest. It is well, that with every morning, for 
eleven weeks, first greetings and inquiries should have been, not of 
business, nor of any individual concern; but, " How is the President 
to-day ? " " What word from Washington ? " " What woid from El- 
beron ? " 

"The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice." Yea, it is well that, 
throughout these eleven weeks, or, rather, seven months, since that 
moment, when upon the steps of the Nation's Capitol, our Knightly 
Hero, upon the instant of his induction into his proud estate, un- 
der the gaze of a hundred thousand men, stooped to those sacred, his- 
toric kisses; it is well tliat not only a Christian man, but also a Christian 
family has stood foremost in the sight of the American people. The 
three generations which should compose the ideal home — the venera- 
ble grandmother, who from the President's infancy, had been his only 
earthly parent, and by whose good sense and sturdy faith and love 
were laid the foundations of his success ; the wife of his youth, his 
classmate in the Ohio school, who, tiiese thirty years, has kept with 
him even pace in all culture and control ; the seven children — five on 
earth and two in heaven — which is the smallest number that can fill 
the ideal home— these all have continuously shared with the President, 
in the sight of the nation, his honors, his cares and his pains. 

"The bravest are the tenderest; 
The loving are the daring." 

By repeated sorest trials borne together and by the homely incidents 
and familiar conversations between father and children repeated over 
the land, that family has become aputheosised. It stands before the 
nation to represent all that remains — best, purest and divinest in our 
fallen human nature; yet, a bliss and height of unselfish domestic 
fidehty within reach of every youth and maiden who truly plight their 
troth. And now when, by the fearful multiplication of divorce in the 
East and by defiant Mormonism in the AVest, by the sad tendencies 
toward extravagance and all lusts of the flesh; when thus the family 
is imperiled, is it not Divine Love and boundless good, that a faithful, 
great hearted, life long love, of three generations, has been " set on 
high, illuminated with great light, and burnished into glory," — yea, 
even against the background of the bitterness of death, — before the 
nation's gaze ! 

Is it not true, my brethren, that the stemming the tide of fornica- 
tion and the maintaining and increase among our native born Ameri- 
can population, of monogamy and steadfast domestic loyalty are of 
more consequence to America than is the Federal Constitution or the 
Union of the States? I believe in the Union ; I would die for it. I 



believe in tlie Cliuirh; I would die ft)r it. P>ut lirst, and iiiont I believe 
in the Christian family; and more gladly than for ought beside, would 
I die or live that husbands and wi\es, parents and children, might be 
true to these fundamental ties. 

Shall we not " rejoice " toda}', that, even through the mysteries of 
affliction, our ]Martyr has been magnitied before the nation, these three 
solemn months, not so much in the capacity of statesman, scholar or 
executive, as in that of the dutiful son, loyal husband, kind father 
and consistent, simi>le-hearted Chrit^tian. "The Lord reigueth; let the 
earth rejoice." 

" We called him Statesman, in the Senate halls. 

And Orator, when setting hearts athrill, 
We named him Hero, on the battle-field, 

And Chieftain by a sovereign jieople's will. 
But now we learn, through days of sore distress, 
That pain has made him gi-ander than success. 

The man himself, so loving, pure and calm. 

Has been revealed through these slow days of pain; 

"We've found the heart tliat made his words so hot. 
The crystal soul that winged his splendid brain; 

And so we bring with tears this highest meed. 

The man is greater than his greatest deed," 

]Many of us, I imagine, in both political parties, wished a year ago, 
that we might, b}^ some device, separate the electoral ballot of that 
campaign; and give our voice to some other than the man named, on 
either ticket, for the office of Vice-President. But, by our .^aulty elec- 
toral system, that could not be. And the same ballot of the Electoral 
Colleges, at the various State Capitals, last December 5th, which made 
James A. Gai-field President, on the glad last fourth of ]March, also 
made Chester A. Arthur President, this solemn September nineteenth. 
Therefore, the same patriotism which bade the nation last week, with 
one heart, ])ray for the President then, bids us, with the same one 
heart, pray for the President now. 

And is it not a further Divine blessing of these eleven weeks of our 
3Iartyr's vicarious pain, that, during them, the nation has had this op- 
portunity to learn the better qualities of the man from whom, twelve 
weeks ago, the national heart recoiled with instant, ominous unwilling- 
ness that he should be Chief Magistrate? — the man who, nevertheless, 
in these trying months, has boine himself so discreetly, modestly, qui- 
etly and with such apparent appreciation of the delicacy, difficulties 
and responsibilities of his ])osition, as led every heart, I imagine, with 
almost its second thought, last Tuesday morning, to turn with sympa- 
tliy and hojie toward President Arthur. 

'•'The President is dead." "Long live the President!" There will be 
united, stated prayer, by all worshiping congregations of every denom- 
ination, and by all souls, from this time on in America, to an extent 
such as there has never been before, for " God's servant, the Presi- 
dent of these LTuited States,"~whomever that President may be This 
is " pervenient prayer; " better than body-guard or a coat of mail, to 



10 

shield our mightiest, not only from an assassin's bullet, but also from 
iolly, wrong or sin. 

God bless President Arthur ! whose, to-day, is the only life between 
constitutional government and whatever unconstitutional device might 
be best concocted by Cabinet or Supreme Court. God bless the Pres. 
ident ! God shield him from accident m travel, from disease or vio- 
lence. God vouchsafe to him the wisest counselors and all the pru- 
dence and heavenly guidance which lie so sorely needs. God save 
the state ! 

" The morning breaks and o'er the land 

Another Kuler waves his hand. 
Men die, but States and Kingdoms live ! 

Tears to the dead tlie people give; 
And to the living Chief (jur trust- 
That he in all things will be just. 
Let him, like Briton's Arthur, wear. 

Among his nobles, rank as ^air; 
And the great love that Garfield won 
Shall fall on him for benison !" 

And thus I believe, as a more perpetual benefit of Garfield's martvr- 
dom, that we are to have men more worthy than those whom, as the 
rule, we have had through the latter half of our nation's history, — 
more worthy of the elective headship of fifty million freemen. It will 
not be enough for a successful Presidential candidate that he be "availa- 
ble;" nor tor a Vice-Presidential candidate, that he represent a section 
of the country or faction of the party, other than that of the name 
first on the ticket, but we shall demand alike for the Presidency and for 
the Vice-Presidency no other than the worthiest and truly greatest of 
Columbia's sons. 

To be President of the United States is to sit in the loftiest seat of 
earth, to wield power transcending far the sceptre of any Emperor, 
Empress, Tsar or Premier. Rightly may our master minds, as Clay, 
Webster, Chase and Blaine aspire ardently to this greatest earthly 
goal. But, henceforth may no man attain that goal who presses his 
own candidacy! Humble, as well as great, gentle as well as noble, godly 
as well as gifted must henceforth be our our mightiest. No vicious 
nor profane may sit in Garfield's seat. God save the state ! 

" The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice." 

If forboding still presses upon our hearts concerning the three years 
to come, let us remember with grateful praise for the democratic insti- 
tutions of our favored land that the life of no single man,— no, not of 
Lincoln, nor of Garfield,— is indispensable to the national existence ; 
while on the contrary, no single man, however base or false, in the 
place of supreme power, can do the nation vital harm. For this, is a 
" government of the people, by the people and for the people. " An- 
nually, biennially, or certainly quadriennially, the government returns 
upon the people's shoulders. 

With all the sublime reach of Presidential power, transcending that 
of earth's most imperial desjxjt, still it is power restrained by strictest 



11 

law. If jiossibly the President of to-day should so ignore the lessons 
of the recent past, as to place in the premiership the hapless man 
whom the nation holds to be the unwitting, yet undeniable, secondary 
cause of Garfield's death ; still it would be the President's prerogative, 
and the nation would submit. If he should choose, upon factional 
grounds to effect speedy change in an hundred thousand public offices 
it would be the President's prerogative, and the nation would submit. 
But should he then overstep his prerogative by but the least iota of 
unconstitutional usurpation, let him be assured that he will meet, be- 
side Andrew Johnson's impeachment peril, an iunneasurably deeper 
than Andrew Johnson's ignominy. 

AVhatever the near future may bring to America, let American citi- 
zens heed it that this is a government of law ; and he only is a true 
son of the Republic, who in every time and place obeys the law. Shall 
not the nation rebuke the sedition and self-conceit of those hundreds 
of men, in AVashington and along the route to New Jersey, who have 
sworn, we are told, that if any one of them but get sight of that 
wretch who will soon pass by that route. to his doom, that one will take 
into his own hands the infliction of the doom. Deprive not the na- 
tion of such slight, stern satisfaction, ere the thirty days' mourning are 
expired, as may be derived from a nation's righteous, legal, stately ret- 
ribution. 

Not indeed as it werej:hat we who believe in God admit for a mo- 
ment that the quaking cur, the distorted Caliban in the cell, has been 
the Author of this national woe. Ujjon earth and in hell, as well as 
in heaven, the Lord Jehovah reigns. Tlie Lord God allowed it; it be- 
ing "expedient that one Martyr should die for the nation." But none 
the less is the assassin guilty before God and man. And die he now 
by the dread felon's death,— not by some swift, unseen bullet; and his 
name henceforth take precedence of the names of Benedict Arnold 
and of Jefferson Davis, as the most execrable name of American his- 
tory ! ( Yet, may God have mercy, if it be possible, on even Guiteau's 
soul !) Let the ill-advised, self-conceited Sergeant ]Mason, too, suffer 
full legal penaltios^ and the world learn that a soldier of the L^nited States 
Army must obey orders; and that the American nation reveres Amer- 
ican law. 

Obedience to law, — fundamental commandment of matter and of 
mind, of earth and of heaven, this I would teach to-day; as he taught 
it, who, son, servant, student, soldier, senator, sovereign, still ever un- 
deviatingly regarded the laws of family, college, army, congress and 
of his final oath of the Presidential office. 

"The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice." 

And, finally, as most direct lesson and benefit of Garfield's martyr- 
dom, the immediate reason why it is clearly apparent that God hath 
visited this nation with solemn judgment, as well as with blessing, may 
we not see, as an editorial in the Boston CongregationaliM yesterday re- 
ceived, says : 



12 

" Behind the pistol and the wretch who exploded it, wliole regiments 
of conspiring forces; tr(ioi)S and squadrons and armies of evil ambi- 
tions and unscrupulous aims and villainous agencies: all fully bent on 
possessing and perverting the Government of a free people to the 
upluilding of their own individual and corporate greeds. And we 
can see good men drawing themselves away, an<l sitting apart, partly 
in hopeless ignorance of a more excellent way, partly in disgust at 
their own helplessness, jiartly in dismay and the fear that our calami- 
ties are already bej'ond repair." 

But fellow Americans, under the shock of that direful bullet, shall 
it not be that Civil Service Reform shall be no more merely agitated, but 
straightway and thoroughly instituted? Shall not the nation be de- 
livered from this the most degrading principle which hath ever been 
found in huuian government, to wit, that otlice means merely reward 
of party service ? 

In the w-ords, again, of one of New England's most emhient minis- 
ters: "As we read the signs of this dread day, we see in them the ir- 
resistible resolve of the American i)eople to avenge nobly our Martyr, 
by striking from existence the infamous 'spoils' system, which has al- 
ready rent the body politic with wounds which bleed like his. Woe to 
the man ! woe to the party hencef(jrtli that refuses to do God's work 
in bringing this hideous structure of seltishness to the dust." 

Above that tomb in the Cleveland Cemetery overlooking the watersof 
these Northern Lakes, which tomb to-morrow shall be tenanted with 
America's most sacred dust, — above it we hail the day already dawn- 
ed when patriotism renews in American hearts its olden Haiues; 
and when public otlice regains its old time meaning of public service, 
and tind its continuance in the one (piality of continued fitness. We 
despair not of the Republic. 

"God reigns, and the government still lives." "The Lord reigneth; 
let the earth rejoice." "The kings of the earth are His." " The gov- 
ernment shall "be upon His shoulders." "By IMe, kings reigirand 
princes decree justice." " I will restore thy judges as at the first, and 
thy counselors as at the beginning. T will punish all that oppress I\Iy 
people. Their nobles shall be of themselves and their governor shall 
prcKteed from the midst of them; and I will cause their governor to 
draw near and approach unto Me.'' 

" Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 

With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 

We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What Workman wrought thy ri))S of steel, 

AVho made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
AVhat anvils rang, what hammers beat. 

In what a forge and what a heat, 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope I 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 

'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 
And not a rent made l)y the gale ! 

In spite of rock, and tempest's roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore. 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee; 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears. 

Are all with thee— are all with thee I" 



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